The front of my house needs some re-pointing, where the lime mortar has been washed away over the years. Unlike the back, however, it was built with (AIUI) penny joints, ie about a 2-3mm mortar line, so it seems the normal approach for ~10mm joints is unlikely to work well here.
Is anyone aware of any useful tricks or tips for this situation that might make it less of a PITA?
Cheers
Steady hand with an icing gun and a small spatula? ;-)
I'd be interested in tips and tricks for doing ordinary lime mortar repointing on old walls too. Some needs doing on our village hall.
I'd be especially interested in any tricks to match the colour and texture to existing tarnished and rather rustic surface so that new repairs do not stick out like a sore thumb. I was thinking of adding a trace of carbon black in the mix to take the edge off the whiteness.
Is the OP looking for "tuck-pointing" or "penny rolling"? AIUI only tuck-pointing involves inserting a narrow white mix into mortar that matches the colour of the bricks; penny rolling just (huh!) makes a straight, smooth line on the roughened mortar.
I can't help beyond that. I can do good pointing. Tuck-pointing might as well be a dive from the 10m board, backward, with 2.5 somersaults and
2.5 twists in the piked position - with no water in the pool.
that should be "can't do..." - as also in "can't do good typing"
Use new sand etc that matches the existing. Sometimes other additions were used eg shells.
Tinting to match old mortar results in a long term mismatch as mortars gradually darken a bit due to surface dirt. Better to wait until all set & apply a biofilm forming liquid eg watered down yogurt, excrement etc. I doubt the latter is legal now.
NT
Well, that's sold me on the latter for sure, although I wasn't really thinking so much about the finish, as about how to actually get the mortar into the very narrow gaps: On 'conventional' brickwork, I would normally chop out a line of mortar on a hawk (or a float, although that may give some a heart attack!), then press that into the prepared gap with a small trowel before finishing. Somehow, I just can't imagine that ending well in these penny joints. It would be easy enough to cover them, but to bed the mortar properly into the joint looks tricky.
Maybe - if I could get the consistency right. It certainly looks like some kind of squirting approach would be more successful.
I haven't even got as far as worrying about colour matching or how to source the components to make the lime mortar, which looks like a special challenge.....
I suppose that's a good reason to do a large area all at once: Even if it doesn't match other areas, at least it would be consistent over itself. If it is illegal and it came to that, I've probably broken more important rules in my time and can't imagine what the charge would be for handling dilute yogurt in a private space.....
Sorry, I misread your original post. If the whole joint between 2 bricks is just 2-3mm then that's not "penny rolled" AIUI. You seem to have "rubbed" or engineering bricks - bricks which could be laid with just a thin mortar bed. If so, I'm afraid I'm no use to you on how best to rake out and point such narrow gaps.
I acquired a big tub of wet lime putty. You mix it with the sand in small batches as needed and away you go. Keeps OK sealed inside the pot. (I think it continues to mature for quite a while)
Took several goes to find an acceptable coloured sand to match and even longer to find some rounded fine grain small pebble grit. The final stage I recall involved gentle wire brush to expose them.
Main problem I had was the new pointing repairs were very much brighter than the soot and algae stained hundred year old mortar. But at least afterwards it was weatherproof and the colour did match eventually.
Racial abuse, you would not be respecting someones Culture.
G.Harman
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